10th Mar 2010

Portrait:blurring the background

  • Hi,
    What works better to blur the backbround to a great extent in portrait photography?
    (1) Longer range, say photo taken zoom 200 / 6.3 in daylight
    or
    (2) large apperture with 50mm / 1.8?
    I believe if light is not an issue then shutter speed has no role to play in this.
    ketan:sexywink:


  • Hi,
    What works better to blur the backbround to a great extent in portrait photography?
    (1) Longer range, say photo taken zoom 200 / 6.3 in daylight
    or
    (2) large apperture with 50mm / 1.8?
    I believe if light is not an issue then shutter speed has no role to play in this.
    ketan:sexywink:

    Hi,

    Both a longer lens or a larger aperture will reduce depth of field. You are right, shutter speed is irrelevant here.

    BUT there are very important factors beyond the equipment that you use. Namely, your distance to the subject, and the subject's distance to the background. Get yourself closer to the subject, or the subject further from the background, and you won't have to use an ultra-wide aperture.


  • 3 things affect your depth of field. Focal Length (magnification), distance to subject and aperture.

    to get the best results, keep your subject far away from any background, use a long lens and a wide aperture (wide enough to get the subject in focus) and get as close to the subject as you can with the lens you have.

    The background will be like cream.


  • Ketan As matt says your shots are way under exposed however the idea is there. Here's one I used with the 70-200 f2.8L IS.

    Aperture wide open. close enough to get the composition right and background far away.......

    http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/gallery/data/889/Blue-Heron-Web.jpg


  • my sigma lens can focus at less then 40 inches when at 300mm. you wanna talk about shallow DOF... its a fun game to play called "find the in-focus-plane" - better than wheres waldo


  • Yeah I suspect it would, being a longer telephoto lens. It should still be possible to get a very shallow depth of field with the 50mm though, especially when you move closer to the subject, and use the larger apertures. Maybe the background simply looks more obviously blurred on shots taken with the Tamron? That is one possibility since the 50mm prime may produce a smoother, more subtle "bokeh" (out of focus area).


  • ZaphodB is right - distance plays a huge role here. I have a 24mm f/2.8 prime, and I'm amazed by the bokeh I can get when I'm shooting really tight to the subject at a large aperture.

    That said, it's a lot easier with my 200mm. :)


  • Ketan, these photos are extremely underexposed. I hope you can see that. As I said in your other thread, you really need to work on getting a good exposure first.


  • I find that photo taken in bright light at 200mm on my ancient temron blurs better than 50mm / 1.8
    ketan


  • I think this is what you mention, EOS_JD.
    I attach two photo at the same place with my old Tamron.
    Would you consider the lens good?
    ketan


  • Got your point, but what I feel is, as you say I was trying to prove a point of bakground blurring.
    As you can see in these photos, exposure does not seem to be a concern.:blushing:
    BTW how do you paste your pics in the response. Mine looks small as attachments.







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